Look out for the Autoped Girl!

If you were the sort of person who did your gift shopping in the 1916 equivalent of the Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog (Hammacher Schlemmer, maybe), an autoped was on your list. Transit and taxi strikes in recent years had caused commuters in New York and elsewhere to investigate alternate means of transportation, and a car wasn’t always an option.

I haven’t been able to dig up much about inventor Hugo C. Gibson, but he was a London-area engineer who specialized in gas engine design and aeronautical development, and came to New York around 1906, where he was associated with the British Ministry of War. By 1910, he was a big name, thanks to working on analyses of Selden patent issues for ALAM, and he and became associated with the Requa-Coles Company, which was an aviation concern. He received a number of patents during this era, ranging from a manograph for investigating combustion within cylinders, to automobile gauges, to propeller designs, and he developed a 200-pound, 50hp V-twin aviation engine for Requa-Coles (later Requa-Gibson).

In late 1913, he started showing off something a little smaller in the hills around his New Jersey home, a self-propelled scooter. The innovative two-wheeler had an air-cooled 2-1/4 hp engine over the front wheel, and featured a tilting steering column, a la the Segway: Pushing forward engaged the clutch, the left grip controlled speed, right had compression release, while pulling the whole column back engaged the brake. The hollow column was also the gas tank (!), and it folded flat and locked in place, sealing the tank and making a convenient carrying handle for the 90-pound (Gibson had originally aimed for 40 pounds, a very different proposition) machine – perfect for riding to the subway station, and tucking next to your desk at the office. It was capable of a maximum 25 MPH speed; Gibson’s Autoped Company of America built it in Long Island City, claimed 100 MPG at 20 MPH, and sold it for $100. Starting was via the simple expedient of scooting yourself up to speed and popping the clutch. A Breeze carburetor was claimed leakproof at any angle. Later versions appear to have had a small conventional gas tank above the engine, a battery box for lighting, and pull start operation.

As this was the first motorscooter developed in the United States, few knew what to make of it, and it was popularly described as a “cross between a motorcycle and a roller skate.” While “The Wonder of the Motor Vehicle World” did capture the popular imagination, it was never a big seller as personal transportation. Rather, it seems to have become a sort of novelty among a certain flapper set – just the thing for terrorizing and scandalizing out-of-towners. Captain Sir George Mansfield Smith-Cumming, better known as MI6’s founding father, “C,” also bought one and brought it back to England to help get about – he’d amputated his left leg with a pen knife after a Rolls-Royce accident.

Actress Lillian Lorraine on her Autoped

It did find favor in commercial applications – like around big factories – and in light urban delivery service, where it proved highly economical to run. It was in Europe, however, that the Autoped really caught on. Licensed and unlicensed versions were built in England (U.K. Imperial), Czechoslovakia (CAS) and Germany (Krupp). These were followed by several new versions in both Europe and America, and ultimately, Vespa and a hundred others.

Autopeds continued to be made through about 1918, but by 1916, Gibson was seemingly done with the Autoped. He was abandoning that design to concentrate on something really practical: The Gibson Mon-Auto.

BOBsays:

November 8, 2011 9:38 am

Fred Schmidlsays:

November 9, 2011 11:11 am

Hi Bob,your SOLEX is a french invention and they sold it all over Europe.In the french speaking part of Switzerland ( where I come from..) they were very common.In the meantime these SOLEXes became very rare and collectors pay up to $ 600 to 1000,00 for a restored SOLEX from the first generation. As new they cost about $ 250,– in the Sixties.I would like to know how it found its way to US.

Brucesays:

June 10, 2013 9:18 am

We had a Solex dealer here in Tampa. Ihasd a chance to buy out his NOS inventory of frames engines sheet metal etc still on the shelf, in the gunsmith shop he had owned over 20 years. I passed due to looking for real thoroughbred type 2 wheelers, and it wasn’t desirable to own anything Solex.

John Byrdsays:

December 16, 2013 12:51 pm

Hi Fred. Another Solex story for you here. I found two of these for sale in Muscle Shoals, Alabama a few years ago and bought them both. One had a ripped up tire,and I never tried to start it, but after a bit of tinkering, the other one ran good enough to fool around my dead end road and driveway on. Mine did have a throttle, but to stop the darn thing, you had to lift the darn thing back off the front wheel, which was more than difficult if in a hurry, ha ! I rode it in gravels two times, and with the un-engaging “drive” and the totally flat “rub” surface of the front tire for the drive unit to run on, also wrecked twice ! It was a hoot, if anyone has never ridden a FWD bike, don’t try it alone, ha ! I sold both of mine to a Tennessee Harley dealer…. they were strange contraptions, but fun. The flat “tread” surface of the front tire alone guarantees a crash in your future……

philippesays:

May 23, 2013 2:54 pm

Brucesays:

June 10, 2013 9:19 am

Colinsays:

July 22, 2014 10:04 am

Hi Phillipe. Only noticed your response now. I am based in South Africa and all my efforts to get drawings for the rear fender/ rear subframe ( I have the rear wheel) have turned up nothing. As far as I can see this is all that is missing except for tyres. Every now and then, like today, I try and get more info.

sweetiepiesays:

December 2, 2011 2:56 pm

As a kid in the late fifties, I remember several solex’s being ridden in Little Rock, Arkansas, and have ridden one several times myself. They are clever in their simplicity, basically being a motor mounted over the front wheel of a bicycle. Just pedal up to speed, reach down & unhook the handle, and the motor drops onto the wheel, causing it to start. I don’t recall any throttle control,though!!

joe martinsays:

December 28, 2011 10:52 am

I built one of these ‘stand-up scooters’ using a Schwinn child’s scooter with 12″ wheels and mounting an 2-cycle engine over the back wheel, it will go 35 mph all day long on a gallon of gas. What fun! ! ! !

Leon Dixonsays:

July 23, 2012 11:13 am

You may want to know that there were several such motorized foot scooters over many years. And the one shown here may not have been the first… just best publicized–especially with the hot artwork!

Never, ever heard of Schwinn making a child’s scooter (got most of the brochures from the company spanning nearly 10 decades…they generally avoided making children’s sidewalk toys). But Schwinn did manufacture a few cars and a bunch of motorcycles.

Then there were the wild attempts (one of the most notable in Berlin in the 1920s) when some crazy folks tried motorizing roller skates. One fellow took the design of a child’s sidewalk scooter and reduced it down to fit under shoes and called them “skate-bikes” There were two versions–one of which was motorized!

Anyway, another time when a beautiful lady was used to advertise a very similar gadget to the Autoped was 1949. Hollywood starlet Linda Mason appeared with a child’s sidewalk scooter what was modified with a 1/3 HP motor. It was claimed to power the scooter at “the speed of a slow walk” with Linda aboard. Gizmo was made by a company called Duro-Matic Products in Hollywood.

Of course, the most outrageous part of all was that this whole device was propelled not directly from motor to wheels, but instead by a good-sized propeller mounted on the vertical steering stalk! Imaging getting THAT past CSPC today!

There were more such motorized foot scooter vehicles attempted in the 1970s, some adapted from children’s sidewalk scooters. One interesting unit I recall was adapted from the Japanese “Road Puppy” vehicle.

December 16, 2013 12:26 pm

Stansays:

December 16, 2013 4:18 pm

All very interesting, but I still think that the ultimate in minimalist personal transportation is the device that I believe was invented in Russia not too long ago – It consisted of a pair of shoes, each of which was fitted with a piston/cylinder which compressed an air-fuel mixture when stepped on, and then fired, propelling the wearer into an extra-long, leaping stride to repeat the process in the other shoe!

SamBlobsays:

February 23, 2014 11:47 pm

The “Autoped Girl” in the top illustration looks like she’s going quite fast, but the handlebar column is inclined very far backward, which should have disengaged the engine and applied the brake… maybe she’s out of control?